FAA Accident Investigation: What It Is, How It Works, and What It Means for You

Who Is Actually Investigating the Crash: The FAA's Role Explained

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the federal agency that regulates civil aviation safety in the United States. Its work includes certifying aircraft, licensing pilots, running air traffic control and overseeing the companies that fly and maintain aircraft. A civil aviation accident is a crash or other serious event involving a non-military aircraft, such as an airliner, a charter flight, a private plane, a helicopter tour or a flight-school trainer.

After an accident, the FAA may open its own inquiry focused on compliance. It asks whether a pilot, an operator or a maintenance provider failed to follow FAA regulations. That inquiry is separate from, and secondary to, the investigation run by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the independent federal agency with primary authority to investigate civil aviation accidents in the United States. The FAA does not lead the accident investigation. The NTSB does.

For a person or family following the official record, this distinction matters. The agencies produce different documents for different purposes, and the law treats those documents differently once a claim is involved. If you are reading news coverage or agency updates, it can help to note which agency issued each record, since that shapes what the record means and where it carries weight. A side-by-side view of the two agencies appears on the site's page on NTSB vs. FAA.

What the NTSB's Findings Can and Cannot Tell Your Family

The NTSB's own regulation describes the purpose of its work. Under 49 C.F.R. § 831.4, the NTSB conducts investigations "to determine the facts, conditions, and circumstances relating to an accident." It uses those results "to determine one or more probable causes of an accident, and to issue safety recommendations to prevent or mitigate the effects of a similar accident." The same section says the NTSB begins by monitoring the situation and assessing the available facts. After that first assessment, it notifies the people and organizations it expects will be affected about how extensive its investigation will be.

The FAA takes part in NTSB investigations as a "party." FAA technical staff contribute their knowledge, but the NTSB controls the investigation and its findings. Under 49 C.F.R. § 831.13, information that a participating person or organization obtains must generally be provided promptly to the NTSB, unless the NTSB authorizes the party to keep it. That information includes photographs, physical evidence from the scene, interview statements, wreckage documentation, and flight data and cockpit voice recorder information.

The NTSB's work produces a sequence of documents. A preliminary report is an early factual summary. It is not a finding, and it does not state a cause. Factual records follow. A final report then states the probable cause. Probable cause is the NTSB's official conclusion about the factors that caused or contributed to the accident. When an investigation is still open, no probable cause has been stated.

The regulation also defines what these investigations are not. Section 831.4(c) says they "are fact-finding proceedings with no adverse parties" and "are not conducted for the purpose of determining the rights, liabilities, or blame of any person or entity."

Congress reinforced that line in 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b): "No part of a report of the Board, related to an accident or an investigation of an accident, may be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages resulting from a matter mentioned in the report."

For a family, this means the NTSB's findings can inform their understanding of what happened, but they do not decide a civil claim. A civil case rests on evidence gathered independently of the NTSB report. Families in this position often weigh whether to wait for the final report or to look at what evidence exists now, and that is one question an attorney can help sort out. The site's page on the NTSB investigation process covers the stages in more detail.

The Evidence Investigators Look At, and Why It May Matter to You

Investigators start with the physical and recorded evidence of the flight, much of which may later bear on a claim. They typically examine:

• the aircraft wreckage and its components;
• flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder data, where the aircraft carried them;
• air traffic control communications and radar data;
• maintenance and inspection records;
• pilot certificates and training records;
• operator certificates and operations specifications;
• weather conditions at the time of the accident.

If you have heard about the "black boxes," there are two. The flight data recorder records how the aircraft was operating, such as its altitude, speed and control inputs. The cockpit voice recorder captures sound in the cockpit, including the crew's conversation. Federal law limits how these recordings reach a courtroom. Under 49 U.S.C. § 1154(a), a party generally may not use discovery to obtain a cockpit recorder recording, or transcript portions the NTSB has not made public. A court may allow it only after a private review, called an in camera review, and only if it decides the material is necessary for a fair trial. Any material allowed must stay under a protective order. For a family, this means the recordings are not simply handed over in a lawsuit.

The FAA's own inquiry asks a narrower question: whether any regulatory violation occurred, for example whether an air carrier or a charter operator complied with FAA regulations. An air carrier is a commercial airline that carries passengers or cargo for hire. A charter (Part 135) operator flies on-demand or smaller commercial flights, such as air taxis, many air ambulances and some tour flights, under a separate set of FAA rules known as Part 135. Tour flights raise their own questions, which the site's page on sightseeing flight accidents discusses.

These categories say nothing about the cause of any particular accident. They are, however, the kinds of records that tend to matter later in a civil claim, so a family may want to ask which of them exist for their flight and who holds them.

How FAA Enforcement Records Can Fill Gaps the NTSB Report Leaves

The NTSB's mission is safety. It finds probable causes and issues safety recommendations, but it has no enforcement authority. It cannot fine anyone or take away a license.

The FAA does have enforcement authority. It can suspend or revoke pilot certificates, air carrier certificates and maintenance certificates, and it can impose civil penalties. An FAA enforcement action is its own proceeding, separate from the NTSB investigation. The bar in 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b) applies to reports of the NTSB, and its text does not reach FAA enforcement records.

FAA records, including operator certificates, airworthiness directives and enforcement actions, are public records. An airworthiness directive is an FAA order requiring owners and operators to inspect, repair or change an aircraft or a part to address an unsafe condition. An enforcement action is not a finding that anyone caused a particular accident or injured a particular person. It records what the FAA alleged or decided in its own regulatory process, and its status matters as much as its existence.

For someone hurt in a crash, or a family after a death, these records can help fill in the picture that the excluded NTSB report leaves open. Many people find it hard to know what the public record actually shows, what is still missing, and what further investigation might be needed. A conversation with an attorney familiar with aviation cases can help a family sort out those questions.

What the Investigation Means, and Doesn't Mean, for a Civil Claim

In most cases, a civil claim for injuries or a death in an aviation accident is governed by state tort law, not by the NTSB's findings. A probable cause finding does not establish civil liability. Under § 1154(b), the NTSB report cannot be introduced as evidence in a civil damages action at all.

Under state tort law, a negligence claim generally requires a duty, a breach of that duty, causation, and damages. Whether those elements are met depends on the facts of the specific case. A crash, by itself, does not prove that anyone was at fault.

If a family suspects that a part or the aircraft itself failed, the question becomes one of product liability, the body of law that addresses injuries caused by a defective product. In aviation, such a claim might be brought against an aircraft manufacturer or a parts supplier, and it requires showing a defect and showing that the defect caused the harm. An accident is not proof of a defect.

Wrongful death is a legal claim brought by the family of a person killed through another party's alleged fault. Who may bring it, and what damages the law may allow, are set by state law. The Death on the High Seas Act is a federal law that can govern wrongful-death claims for some deaths at sea well away from shore, including certain fatal accidents over the ocean. Whether it applies turns on where and how the death occurred.

The rules differ from state to state. Statutes of limitations (the deadlines for filing suit), comparative or contributory fault rules (how a claim is affected when more than one party shares blame) and damages rules all vary, and no single state's rule applies everywhere. One state's rules are set out on the site's Texas aviation accident lawyer page. Because the deadline depends on the jurisdiction, people in this position often ask early which state's law applies and which deadline governs, questions an attorney can help answer.

Records Families Often Keep After an Aviation Accident

The official investigation creates a public record, but a civil claim relies on evidence gathered independently of the NTSB report. If you were injured, or lost someone, the records that usually matter include:

• medical records documenting injuries and treatment;
• photographs and video from the scene;
• the aircraft's maintenance and inspection logs;
• operator certificates and operations specifications;
• air traffic control recordings and transcripts;
• witnesses' names and contact information;
• communications between the operator and the FAA.

Injured people and families often keep these together as they come in, along with any letters they receive from an operator, an insurer or an agency. Since the NTSB report itself stays out of a damages case, these independent records are what a claim may be built on.

The NTSB also compiles its own material. Section 831.13 describes the investigative information the NTSB collects, including photographs, interview statements, wreckage documentation and surveillance video. The NTSB's docket for an accident, which holds factual records such as reports, photographs and witness statements, becomes available to the public, and the site's page on the NTSB docket explains what it contains. Docket material is factual, but the bar in § 1154(b) still applies to the NTSB's reports.

An investigation can stay open for a long time, and families often wonder how its timeline fits with a claim and which records are worth keeping in the meantime. If you would like to talk those questions through, you can request a case evaluation through this site.